The Maven Slim isn’t just Dovetail Workwear’s first pant. It was the beginning of everything.
When co-founder and product designer Sara DeLuca set out to create it, she wasn’t trying to reinvent denim. She wasn’t even trying to start a business. She was responding to something she’d seen over and over again: women in landscaping and the trades who had learned to make do because no one was designing workwear for them.
“They were always working,” Sara said. “They just didn’t have a brand.”
So she teamed up with landscapers-turned-co-founders, Kate and Kyle, and together they built one.
Built From the Ground Up
The goal was simple: create a work pant that felt as good as a favorite pair of jeans but could handle all the demands of a physically demanding job.
Sara began with the fit of a pair of jeans she loved through the waist and hips, then refined every detail alongside women in landscaping through fittings, trunk shows, wear testing and countless conversations.
“I wanted the fit to look like something that was your favorite pair of jeans.”
The Maven Slim wasn’t designed in isolation. Every round of feedback helped shape the pant, and ultimately the future of Dovetail Workwear.
Today, the Maven Slim is made with graphene-infused fabric. The graphene version was developed independently, but through fittings, the team realized it was potentially better than the original. The fabric composition, which is the same as the Old School High Rise Graphene Pant, is 60% cotton, 32% polyester, 7% NYLON and 1% LYCRA® spandex, which is similar to the original. The main difference is that the graphene version has slightly more stretch, but remains a controlled, comfortable stretch. It is also more durable than the original.
While the pant was quietly discontinued as the brand evolved and grew its product line, customers never let it go.
Sara attributes the Maven Slim’s enduring popularity to its origins, saying, “I think it’s due to the nature of how we created it – all that interaction with the end consumer, all those trunk shows where people would spend hours talking to us and trying it on.”
The Relaunch
Bringing the Maven Slim back wasn’t about revisiting the past. It was about returning a product that had never stopped resonating with the women it was designed for. Today, the pant takes its place in Dovetail’s lineup as an everyday workwear staple. As Sara puts it, “This is going to be in your ‘everything’ category.” It’s a fitting next chapter for the pant that started it all.